A luminaire (light fixture) is a device comprising at least one lighting element (lamp) for emitting the illumination, and any associated socket, support and/or housing. A luminaire may take any of a variety of forms, such as a conventional ceiling or wall mounted luminaire, a free standing luminaire or a wall washer, or a less conventional form such as an illumination source built into a surface or an item of furniture, or any other type of lighting device for emitting illumination into an environment. The lamp refers to the actual lighting element, of which there may be one or more per luminaire. The lamp may also take any of a number of forms, such as an LED-based lamp comprising one or more LEDs, a organic LED (OLED) or a gas-discharge lamp, or a traditional filament bulb. “Light source” is a general term which may be used herein to refer to either an individual lamp or a luminaire comprising one or more lamps.
Nowadays a luminaire or even an individual lamp may also be equipped with a communication interface allowing the luminaire or lamp (light source) to be controlled remotely by lighting control commands received from a user device such as a smartphone, tablet, laptop or desktop computer, or wireless wall-switch; and/or based on sensor readings received from one or more remote sensors. The communication interface may be included in the housing of the luminaire, or even directly within the lamp itself (e.g. in the end-cap of a retrofittable replacement for a filament bulb or fluorescent tube). For example this can allow a user, through the user device, to turn the illumination from the light source (luminaire or lamp) on and off, to dim the illumination level up or down, to change the colour of the emitted illumination, and/or to create a dynamic (time varying) lighting effect. In addition, a light source may include one or more of various types of environmental sensor built in to the light source, e.g. for aggregating data from multiple such light sources, both related to lighting (e.g. daylight or occupancy sensor) and/or non-lighting applications (CO, CO2, moisture, noise, temperature, pollution)
In one form, the communication interface is configured to receive the lighting control commands and/or to share sensor data via a local wireless communication channel, typically using a short-range radio access technology such as Wi-Fi, ZigBee or Bluetooth or contact-less communication technologies such as NFC. This could be either via a direct link from the control device to the light source (e.g. a direct wireless link such as a ZigBee or Bluetooth link), or via a router of a local area network (e.g. via a wireless router of a wireless area network such as a Wi-Fi network), or even via a local ad hoc connection amongst a distributed network of light sources (e.g. again using ZigBee or Bluetooth). In the case of radio, short range communication technology may be on an unlicensed band. In the case of wireless communications generally, a local communication technology typically operates over a range less than 100 to 200 m, or less. Such luminaires or lamps as described above may be referred to herein as “wireless light sources”.
In another form, the communications interface of the light source is configured to allow it to receive the lighting control commands and/or to share sensor data via a connection over a wide area network, such as the Internet a mobile cellular network (e.g. a 3GPP network), and/or even a dedicated wide-area lighting control network (e.g. based on long-range RF) or a smart city-infrastructure network (such as a mesh network for smart meters, lighting and smart city applications). This may be conducted using a suitable packet-based communication technology for wide area communications over wired and/or wireless networks, such as Internet Protocol (IP), cellular protocols, or even dedicated wide area lighting control technologies such as those based on Ultra Narrow Band. A wide area network is one that covers a greater area than a local area network or other such short range, local technology, and often much greater distances (e.g. networked end nodes separated by >1000 m). Such light sources as these may be referred to herein as “connected” light sources (though note that the fact that “connected light sources” are contrasted herein with basic “wireless light sources” does not exclude the possibility that connected light sources may use wireless means, e.g. the connection between the light source and a bridge providing access to the wide area network may be via a local wireless link, such as via Wi-Fi, 6LoWPAN, ZigBee or Bluetooth).
There is an increasing number of wireless light sources being deployed capable of communicating with a wireless control device such as a user terminal or sensor in a limited-size local network. Connected light sources, with additional advanced digital functionality including remote connection, are also of interest to some users but are more complex for the provider to implement. Two options are presently used by providers. The first option is to offer two intentionally non-interoperable wireless ecosystems. The second option is to use the same wireless light source SKU (stock-keeping-unit, i.e. product) for both the wireless light source and the connected light source.